One Space or Two?

When you’re typing and come to the end of a sentence and tap the period key, do you allow one space before you type the next sentence or two? Either way—I think—is correct but there has been some debate about it recently. I’ll put in my two cents.

When I was learning to type in high school, the teacher wanted a double space between sentences. Same thing in college. Somewhere along the way, and I don’t remember when or where, I was told to only allow one space between sentences. Certainly by the time I got to CityBeat, the “one space” totally ruled.

Once upon a time, the “Living Out Loud” column in CityBeat had contributing writers. Most of those contributors followed the one space rule except for one person.

This writer’s columns were always above the call of duty, but he would always double space between sentences. I mean, he was technically correct, more or less, so I never sent the columns back to him for corrections. I just made the changes myself.

I think he reads this blog on occasion, so how he’s gonna know what I did. OK, my friend. Just get over it. It was no big deal.

In case any of you really care, I single space between sentences here.